Name News Round Up

17 Tuesday Dec 2013

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Baby Center Australia, birth data, birth registries, celebrity names, choosing baby names, fictional namesakes, French names, Kidspot, middle names, name meaning, name trends, names from television, naming laws, popular names, rare names, Starts at Sixty

Baby Center Australia has released its most popular names for 2013, with Oliver and Charlotte taking the #1 positions. Names with a strong V featured prominently, including Ava, Evie and Ivy, and X, with Jaxon and Jaxson included along with Jackson. Less common names from the site: Blue, Chevy, Blip and Daxx.

Meanwhile, News Limited looked at data from birth registries all over Australia to see how popular culture is affecting name choices. Some names from Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad, Dexter, Downton Abbey, Mad Men, NCIS, How I Met Your Mother, and The Big Bang Theory are up, or appearing for the first time. There’s some rubbery figures, with whole groups of names being counted together, and even quite common names like Abby and Catelyn being counted as “pop culture”. Numbers are statistically significant, but overall very low, so no need to panic in regard to popularity. Most interesting factoid: Dexter peaked in 2010 at 67 births, so the chances of this name hitting the Top 100 are slipping away. Also the fairly ridiculous assertion that “popular culture” names will put your child in hospital … Health Department, please release a health warning on names!

Sabrina Rogers-Anderson from Kidspot is French Canadian by origin, and wanted a French middle name for her daughter, so she and her husband chose Fée – French for “fairy”, and pronounced FAY. Unfortunately, when they went to register the baby’s name in New South Wales, they were told that all accents and diacritical marks were forbidden. Rather than name their baby Arabella Fee, they changed the spelling and went with Fae. However, Sabrina believes that the rule is culturally insensitive, as it disallows valid names and spellings from other countries.

Rebel Wylie from Kidspot is expecting baby number three, a boy, and finds that all is not going well in choosing the name. In her tongue-in-cheek article, she claims her husband Andy is not playing fair in the baby name discussions, because he rejects every name she comes up with, but never suggests anything himself. After moaning about it to her girlfriends, it turns out The Sisterhood believes that the mother gets automatic naming rights as the one bonus of an otherwise miserable pregnancy. Rebel enthusiastically becomes a supporter of this theory, and chooses the name herself. She says Andy only gets a say-so if he can come up with something (she likes) better. A lot of angry comments from people who didn’t find it funny, but some interesting ones too.

Starts at Sixty website looked at the top baby names of 1950, with Jennifer and Peter leading the pack. The author of the article opines that in the past, parents were much more interested in tradition and the meanings of names, and chose accordingly, while today parents choose names from favourite places, TV stars, and brand names. I’m not convinced that parents don’t care about name meaning today – I get so many search terms from people looking for a name with a particular meaning. Lots of interesting comments from the 60+ crowd on how their names were chosen – including a Julie who had her name picked out of a hat (meaning and tradition?!) There were also plenty named after film stars, showing that celebrity name inspiration is no new phenomenon.

The Logan Reporter mourns the days when Sally, Jane, David and Brian were popular names. Newsflash from Logan – the 1960s are over. They’re still coping with the time-lag, including some problems with multicultural Australia. Oh dear.

Names of Fictional Characters for Boys

17 Sunday Nov 2013

Posted by A.O. in Name Themes and Lists

≈ 5 Comments

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American names, American slang terms, berry names, created names, Dutch names, english names, ethnonyms, famous namesakes, fictional namesakes, food names, fruit names, Greek names, Irish names, locational names, name history, name meaning, name popularity, name trends, names from movies, names from television, nature names, nicknames, North American dialect names, Old English names, Old Gaelic names, plant names, rare names, surname names, UK name popularity, unisex names, US name popularity

Asterix

Asterix is the hero of the Asterix comic books by René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo. The comic book series follows the adventures of a village of Gauls resisting Roman occupation. They manage to do this through a magic potion brewed by their local druid, which temporarily gives superhuman strength. Asterix is a diminutive warrior of great shrewdness, and because of his cunning and common sense, is usually chosen to lead important missions. Most of the Gauls in the comics have names ending in a suitably Gaulish -ix, echoing famous Gauls from history, such as Vercingetorix. However, each name is also a jokey pun – translations into English have been very clever at maintaining the spirit of the humour. In the case of Asterix, his name is a play on the typographical mark – the word asterisk comes from the Greek for “little star”, and Asterix is the “star” of the comic series. I have seen Asterix on an Australian baby, and this makes a quirky name for your own little star.

Atreyu

Atreyu is a character in the fantasy novel, The Neverending Story, by Michael Ende. In fact, he is the hero of the book which is read by a little boy named Bastian Bux, so he exists in a story within a story. Atreyu is a young warrior who is sent on a great quest to save the land of Fantastica by seeking a cure for the mysterious illness suffered by the land’s empress. He serves as a projection of Bastian’s “inner hero”, and only Atreyu can save Bastian from his own mistakes. In the 1984 movie version, Atreyu is played by Noah Hathaway. Atreyu was orphaned as a baby, and his name means “son of all” in his own (fictional) language, because he was raised by his entire village. It is pronounced ah-TRAY-yoo. Atreyu has strong connections with music, because not only is there a band with the name, but Atreyu himself has been referenced in songs. In the novel’s original German text, his name was Atréju, and this has proven a slightly geekier alternative.

Caspian

Caspian is a character in C.S. Lewis’ children’s fantasy series, The Chronicles of Narnia. As a young boy in Prince Caspian, he had to fight for his throne against his usurping uncle to become king of Narnia, and as a youth in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, he led a daring expedition to the end of the world. In The Silver Chair, we meet him as a very old man, having reigned wisely and well, but also suffering personal tragedy. In the movies, he was played by Ben Barnes. Because of his great sea voyage, he is known as Caspian the Seafarer. Perhaps because of this connection, Lewis named his character after the Caspian Sea, the world’s largest inland body of water, which is bound by Russia, Azerbaijan, Iran, Turkmenistan, and Kazakhstan. It is named after the Caspi, an ancient people believed to be the same as the Kassites, who were from modern-day Iran. The meaning of their tribal name is unknown. Caspian is a romantic geographic name which sounds rather like Casper with a Latin -ian ending, as in Lucian or Julian.

Dexter

Dexter Morgan is the protagonist of the Dexter series of psychological thrillers by Jeff Lindsay. Dexter works for the police as a forensic blood spatter analyst, but is a serial killer in his spare time. A violent sociopath, he has been carefully trained to satisfy his homicidal urges by only killing murderers, rapists, and other criminals. Dexter is an English occupational surname for someone who dyed cloth, literally “dyer” in Anglo-Saxon. The word was originally specifically feminine, but Dexter has overwhelmingly been used as a male name. Dexter also happens to coincide with the Latin for “right handed”, with connotations of being skilful. Dexter Morgan is certainly dexterous in committing his crimes, while it seems apt the name is connected with dying. The books have inspired a popular television series, with Michael C. Hall in the title role, and since Dexter began airing in 2006, the name Dexter (which was about to slip off the Top 1000) has gone steadily up in popularity in the US; it is currently #362. It may seem strange that a serial killer could save the name, but Dexter Morgan is an oddly sympathetic murderer. Michael C. Hall makes him both likeable and amusing, and (perhaps slightly worryingly) female viewers find the character very attractive. Dexter fits in the surnames-for-boys trend, and has a cool X sound in it. The name Dexter is #218 in Victoria.

Dorian

Dorian Gray is the protagonist of Oscar Wilde’s only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray. Dorian is an extremely handsome young man, who wishes his portrait could age while his own beauty remain changeless. His narcissistic wish is granted, and he spends his life in debauchery while retaining a youthful and innocent appearance. Meanwhile, Dorian’s hidden portrait bears the mark of his every corruption. The story has often been adapted into film; the most recent is Dorian Gray, with Ben Barnes in the title role. It is usually assumed that Wilde took the name Dorian from the Dorian people of ancient Greece, whose name means “upland, woodland”. The ancient Greeks did have names from this source, such as Dorieus and Doris. However, Dorian is also an Irish surname from O’Deoradhain, meaning “son of Deorain”. Deorain is an Old Gaelic name meaning “exile, wanderer, stranger”. Use of the name predates the novel’s publication, and in Eastern Europe it may be a pet form of Teodor. Dorian is sometimes used for girls. Despite Dorian Gray being an evil character, the name has remained in use, and is #558 in the US, and #549 and rising in the UK.

Heathcliff

Heathcliff is the male lead character in Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights, the foster-brother and love interest of Catherine Earnshaw. The novel explores the deep and obsessive love that Cathy and Heathcliff have for each other, and how the thwarting of that love turned Heathcliff into a tortured monster – or perhaps revealed the brute he already was. It’s an eerie tale, but many will think of Heathcliff as the Byronic hero and romantic lover whose passion lived beyond the grave. In film, he has been portrayed by Laurence Olivier, Timothy Dalton, and Ralph Fiennes. Heathcliff is an uncommon English surname meaning “heath on the cliff”; it doesn’t seem to have been used as a personal name before Wuthering Heights, and only rarely since. The name connects Heathcliff to the Yorkshire moors, the natural world outside society where Heathcliff and Cathy can love each other freely. Actor Heath Ledger was named after Heathcliff (and his sister after Catherine!), and as Heath is a fashionable name at present, Heathcliff doesn’t seem too bizarre as a long form, although admittedly a bold choice.

Huckleberry

Huckleberry “Huck” Finn is the protagonist of Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and the best friend of the hero in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Huck is the son of the town drunk, a neglected vagabond who lives a carefree existence until he is adopted and “civilised”. He runs away with an escaped slave named Jim, and the two of them travel down the Mississippi River by raft in search of freedom. Huck has been portrayed on film by Mickey Rooney, Ron Howard, Elijah Wood and Jake T. Austin, among others. Huckleberry is North American dialect for the bilberry, although in practice applied to several wild berries. The word has long been part of American slang, usually to suggest something small and insignificant – the perfect name for Huck Finn, a child of little consequence in his town. Later it came to mean “companion, sidekick”. Huckleberry was in occasional use as a personal name prior to the publication of Twain’s novels. This would make a sweet, offbeat name, while Huck is a hip short form.

Rhett

Rhett Butler is the love interest of Scarlett O’Hara in Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind. A black sheep, he becomes entranced with the spirited Scarlett, and admires her will to survive. Although viewed as a cad by polite Southern society, Rhett is tall, dark, handsome, charming, intelligent, and has a very good understanding of human psychology – especially female – which he utilises to devastating effect. He is the only person who can stand up to Scarlett, and beat her in a battle of wits. In the 1939 movie, the biggest box office smash in history when adjusted for inflation, Rhett is played by Clark Gable. Rhett is a surname which comes from the Dutch de Raedt, meaning “counsel, advice”. Mitchell seems to have chosen the name as an allusion to her first husband, “Red” Upshaw, on whom the character of Rhett Butler is based (with a dash of Rudolf Valentino). Rhett is a sexy bad boy name, not often seen here, although cricketer Rhett Lockyear is one Australian example. In the US, it is #508 and rising.

Rocky

Robert “Rocky” Balboa is the title character in the Rocky movies, played by Sylvester Stallone. Rocky is from the slums of Philadelphia, a grade school drop-out with few skills apart from being able to land punches, so he makes his living as a boxer known as “The Italian Stallion”. Always the underdog, his main weapon (apart from fists like bricks) is a refusal to give up. The movies follow his career through the victories, the losses, the fame, the fortune, the brain damage, and the incredible comeback. Rocky is a humble man with great heart, and although barely literate, possesses a lot of wisdom about life and love. He is named after the boxer Rocky Marciano, whose real name was Rocco. Rocky can be a nickname for similar names, but also signifies incredible strength and toughness. A famous Australian with the name is rugby union champion Rocky Elsom. Rocky is a fun and even cute name, with a namesake that has an important message: it doesn’t matter whether you win or lose, but whether you go the distance.

Sherlock

Sherlock Holmes is the world’s most famous detective, the creation of Arthur Conan Doyle, and the hero of many stories. Known for his use of deductive logic and bewildering array of disguises, he has become an archetype, with his interest in forensic science helping spawn the modern crime genre. The character of Sherlock Holmes was so loved by the public in his own day that Doyle was forced to resurrect him after killing him off, and his popularity continues, with numerous adaptations to stage, radio, film and television – in fact, he is the most prolific character in cinema. Sherlock is an English surname dating to before the Norman Conquest; it comes from the Old English for “shining locks”, referring to someone with fair hair (although dark-haired, brainy Sherlock Holmes does have a “bright head”). Sherlock has been used as a personal name since the 18^th century, and early use may have been influenced by Thomas Sherlock, a popular bishop and Christian apologist. Contemporary adaptations of the Sherlock Holmes stories, such as Sherlock, starring Benedict Cumberbatch, and Elementary, starring Johnny Lee Miller, show this character has lost none of his pulling power, although the name is still closely tied to the brilliant detective. Locky would make an appealing short form – more appealing than Shirley, anyway.

POLL RESULT: People’s favourite names were Caspian, Dexter and Rhett, and their least favourite were Asterix, Atreyu, and Rocky.

(Picture shows Benedict Cumberbatch in the title role of the BBC TV series, Sherlock)

Names of Fictional Characters for Girls

10 Sunday Nov 2013

Posted by A.O. in Name Themes and Lists

≈ 18 Comments

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astronomical names, Celtic names, code names, created names, Disney names, Dothraki names, english names, eponyms, fabric names, famous namesakes, fictional namesakes, German names, Google, horticultural terms, Italian words, J.R.R. Tolkien, Latin names, mythological names, name history, name meaning, name popularity, names from invented languages, names from movies, names from television, names of natural features, names of stars, nicknames, Norman-French names, popular names, portmanteau names, pseudonyms, rare names, short forms, Sindarin names, surname names, UK name popularity, unisex names, US name popularity, vocabulary names, Welsh names

Arrietty

Arrietty Clock is a teenage “borrower” from Mary Norton’s classic children’s fantasy book series, The Borrowers. The borrowers are tiny people who live by “borrowing” everyday items from the Big People, who they call “human beans”. Because of the spirited Arrietty’s curiosity, she and her family end up having far more adventurous lives than the average borrower. In the UK issue of the Japanese animated film Arietty’s World, inspired by the books, Arrietty is voiced by Saoirse Ronan; in the US issue, by Disney actress Bridgit Mendler. Like everything else they own, the borrowers’ names have also been “borrowed”, and used in new ways. Arrietty is reminiscent of the word arietta, meaning “little song, a small aria” in Italian. However, it is also very similar to the name Harriet, and the short form Etty. As Aria and Harriet are quite popular, and Etta very hip, Arrietty is one of those invented names which we are half-surprised wasn’t used before the books’ publication.

Arwen

In J.R.R. Tolkien’s classic fantasy novel, The Lord of the Rings, Arwen Undómiel is an Elven princess, said to be the most beautiful of the last generation of the High Elves. She is the lover of the hero Aragorn, and because she is an immortal, Arwen must sacrifice a great deal to be with her love. In the Peter Jackson films, she is played by Liv Tyler. In the Elvish Sindarin language created by Tolkien, Arwen is said to mean “noble maiden”. However, Tolkien did not invent the name itself, which is a modern Welsh name. It may be a feminine form of Arwyn, which I have seen translated as “very fair, greatly blessed, splendid”. In the UK, the name began charting around the time The Fellowship of the Ring came out, and is currently #654 and rising. This does have a (short) history as a genuine Welsh name, and was given to a very lovely fantasy princess.

Bellatrix

Bellatrix Lestrange is an evil witch in the Harry Potter fantasy series, the Dark Lord Voldemort’s most faithful follower. In the films, she is played by Helena Bonham-Carter. Bellatrix was born into the Black family, and like all members of that clan, she is named after a star. Bellatrix is the common name of Gamma Orionis, a bright star in the constellation of Orion. Its name is Latin for “female warrior”, which was originally given to Capella, and then transferred to Gamma Orionis. It is also known as the Amazon Star, a loose translation of its Arabic name, which means “the conqueror”. Bellatrix Lestrange’s name is apt because she is a skilled warrior for Voldemort, and has won many duels. This name sounds very usable, because it has the popular Bella in it, and the -trix from hip Beatrix. However, while the Harry Potter character has raised the name’s profile, it’s also a stumbling block, because the character is evil – and not in a cool “strong yet misunderstood woman” way. Bellatrix is a fanatical racist with a love for murder and torture, and a starstruck Voldie fangirl with an annoying little-girl voice. So on one hand: great name. On the other: horrible association.

Iridessa

Iridessa is the name of one of the fairies in the Disney Fairies franchise. Her talent is working with light, and she wears a yellow dress, lives in a sunflower, and has clear fairy wings. In the movies, she is voiced by Raven-Symoné. Iridessa is a perfectionist and a worrier; she likes to look on the bright side of things, but can usually sense trouble approaching. When disaster strikes, she rushes in to save the day, and brings sunshine, light and brightness to every situation. The name Iridessa seems to be based on the word iridescent, meaning “producing rainbow-like colours; brilliant, lustrous, prismatic”. The word is derived from Iris, the name of the goddess of the rainbow, so you could see Iridessa as a modern spin on the older name. I have seen a baby with this name, and it’s been frequently Googled, so it seems that people find the name of this fairy intriguing. It’s not surprising, with such an attractive namesake associated with light. Looking for a nickname? Iridessa goes by Dess.

Khaleesi

Khaleesi is extremely unusual as an invented name, because it is not the name of a fictional character, but rather her title. In George R.R. Martin’s fantasy series, A Song of Ice and Fire, khaleesi is the word for the wife of a khal or ruler, in the Dothraki language from the novels. The Dothraki are a nomadic indigenous people without a written language, so the spelling of khaleesi in the novels must come from another culture. In Martin’s novel series, shy Daenerys Targaryen adopts the title of Khaleesi when she weds powerful Dothraki warlord Khal Drogo, and as his queen, grows in strength and confidence, becoming a leader in her own right known as “the Mother of Dragons”. In the television series based on the books, A Game of Thrones, the role of Daenerys is played by Emilia Clarke. Since the television series began airing in Australia, there has been a spike of interest in the name, with about 25 baby girls called Khaleesi born this year. For some reason, the name is far more popular in Queensland than elsewhere – possibly because of the connection with queens.

Lorelei

The Lorelei is the name of a famous rock on the River Rhine in Germany, and also the name of a beautiful water sprite or siren associated with the rock, who is supposed to lure men to their doom. More prosaically, the current of the river is very strong here, which explains the many accidents which have occurred in the area. The character of the Lorelei comes from a 19^th century German ballad which poet Heinrich Heine turned into a poem called Die Lorelei, where a golden-haired siren unwittingly distracts men with her beauty so they crash onto the rocks. The poem has often been set to music and turned into songs, and is part of German popular culture. The name Lorelei is a combination of German dialect and Celtic, and means “murmuring rock”. Lorelei is the name of the alluring blonde in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes; in the film she is played by Marilyn Monroe. The name also features in garrulous gabfest Gilmore Girls, where both mother and teen daughter share the name Lorelei (the younger goes by Rory). Comedienne Kat Davidson named her daughter Lorelei “Rory” this year. Said LOR-uh-lie, this is better known in the US, where it is #531.

Pollyanna

Pollyanna Whittier is the title character of the Pollyanna books by Eleanor H. Porter; the series was continued by a number of writers. Pollyanna is an eleven-year-old orphan who is sent to live with her Aunt Polly in New England, and her sunny disposition soon teaches her stern relative, and the whole town, how to play the “Glad Game” – where you always look for something to feel glad about. While many are charmed by the heroine’s upbeat view of life, cynics find her too syrupy and her philosophy simplistic. Because of this, the word Pollyanna has entered our language to mean someone optimistic to the point of naivety or refusal to face facts. Pollyanna is a combination of Polly and Anna – Polly is a medieval variant of Molly, a pet form of Mary. This would be a difficult name to give a child in many ways, but would make a sunshiney middle, and easily shortens to Polly.

Rogue

Rogue is a character from the X-Men Marvel comic books created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. She is one of the team of mutant superheroes under the auspices of Professor Xavier, who recruits and trains young mutants to use their powers for the benefit of humanity. Rogue considers her special ability something of a curse, as she involuntarily absorbs, and sometimes removes, the memories, strength, and superpowers of anyone who touches her. For most of her life, she limited her physical contact with others, even loved ones, until after many years she was able to gain full control of her abilities. It was eventually revealed that Rogue was a code name, and her real name Anna Marie. In the movies, she is played by Anna Paquin. A rogue is a scoundrel or rascal. More to the point, a rogue animal is one which separates itself from the herd, and in horticulture the word rogue is used to describe a plant which has an undesirable mutation and must be destroyed. Anna Marie seems to have chosen Rogue as her code name to express her bitterness at the biological difference she had been lumbered with. This name can be used for both sexes; I saw it on a baby girl last year.

Scarlett

Scarlett O’Hara is the protagonist of Margaret Mitchell’s best-selling Civil War novel, Gone with the Wind; in the film version she was played by Vivien Leigh. Slender and attractive, Scarlett is flirtatious and charming, but doesn’t fit the mould of a typical Southern Belle. Smart, feisty, stubborn and very strong-willed, she nevertheless is inwardly insecure. What makes Scarlett such an interesting character are her many flaws – she is vain, selfish, spoiled, unscrupulous and manipulative, but hard as nails, with an overpowering survival instinct. Scarlett is an English surname from Norman French, referring to someone who dyed or sold brightly-coloured cloth, which was often red. It has been used as a unisex name since the 17^th century, but is now usually thought of as feminine. The character’s full name is Katie Scarlett O’Hara, and she was named after her grandmother. Margaret Mitchell originally planned to call her heroine Pansy, and changed it to Scarlett just before the novel went to print. Scarlett first ranked in the 1990s at #467, the decade in which American actress Scarlett Johansson made her film debut. It climbed precipitately to join the Top 100 in the mid-2000s, and is currently #25 nationally, #23 in New South Wales, #17 in Victoria, #33 in Queensland, #17 in South Australia, #22 in Western Australia, #21 in Tasmania, and #26 in the Australian Capital Territory.

Velvet

Velvet Brown is the heroine of Enid Bagnold’s novel, National Velvet, about a teenager who rides to victory in the brutally difficult Grand National Steeplechase, the most valuable jump race in Europe. The story is about the ability of ordinary people to achieve great things – Velvet is a plain, rather sickly girl from a working-class family, and the horse she wins on is a piebald. The movie version chucks most of this inspiring message aside so they can show a radiantly pretty pre-teen Elizabeth Taylor galloping about on a chestnut thoroughbred. Velvet is a fabric which was originally very expensive to make, and therefore associated with nobility and royalty. The word is from Old French, and comes from the Latin for “tuft, down”, because of velvet’s distinctive texture. It has been used as a name since the 19^th century, and has been given to both genders, but mostly to girls. This unusual fabric name is warm and luxurious, perhaps even rather sensual.

POLL RESULT: People’s favourite names were Lorelei, Arrietty, and Scarlett, and their least favourite were Rogue, Pollyanna, and Khaleesi.

(Picture is of Iridessa, from Disney website)

Brisbane Suburbs That Could Be Used as Boys Names

13 Sunday Oct 2013

Posted by A.O. in Name Themes and Lists

≈ 7 Comments

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aristocratic names, Biblical names, english names, famous namesakes, fictional namesakes, French names, Gaelic names, hebrew names, Irish names, Latin names, locational names, middle names, name history, name meaning, name popularity, names from films, names from television, nicknames, Old English names, Old Norse names, popular names, rare names, Roman names, saints names, Scottish names, surname names, unisex names, US name popularity, Welsh names

Augustine

Augustine Heights is a new suburb of Ipswich, and gained its name from St Augustine’s Catholic Church and College. The name Augustine is from the Roman name Augustinus, derived from Augustus, meaning “great, venerable”. Its most famous namesake is the theologian Saint Augustine of Hippo, considered one of the most important Church Fathers. He describes his conversion to Christianity in his Confessions, which has become a classic of Christian literature. The name became popular in England in the Middle Ages because of Saint Augustine of Canterbury, a 6^th century founder of the English church known as the Apostle to the English. It is probably because of him that there is an English form of Augustine – the popular Austin. In France, Augustine is a girls name, the feminine form of Augustinus.

Bowen

Bowen Hills is an inner-city suburb of Brisbane. It is named after Sir George Bowen, an Irishman who was the first Governor of Queensland. Tactful and democratic, with a great love of the outdoors, he made himself popular enough to be invited to serve two more years when his term had expired. There are a few places in Queensland named after Sir Bowen, including Bowen Park, a pleasure garden in Bowen Hills. The surname Bowen can be Welsh, meaning “son of Owen“, or it can be Irish, in which case it is an Anglicised form of the Gaelic O’Buadhachain, meaning “son of Buadhach”. The name Buadhach means “victory, triumph”. This name reminds me of the Bowen Technique, an alternative massage treatment developed by Australian Tom Bowen, although Bowen is a knight and dragon-slayer in the movie Dragonheart. Rarely seen here, Bowen is in the Top 1000 and rising for boys in the US. It gives the unisex nickname Bo, and for some reason I see this as a girls name just as much as a boys.

Chandler

Chandler is a semi-rural outer suburb of Brisbane. It is named after Sir John Beals Chandler, a successful businessman with a chain of electrical goods stores, and who owned several radio stations. He was elected to the Queensland Parliament in the 1940s, and Lord Mayor of Brisbane in the 1940s and early ’50s. Chandler is an English occupational surname, which denoted someone who made and sold candles, or someone who was responsible for the wax, soap, candles and lighting in a medieval great house. This name will remind many of Chandler Bing, from popular sit-com, Friends.

Crosby

Mount Crosby is an outer suburb of Brisbane adjoining the state forest. It is named after its dominant natural feature, Mount Crosby. The first settlers to this area were from the village of Crosby-on-Eden, near the Scottish border, and it seems likely that they named their new home after their original one. The surname Crosby is after the place name, a common one in northern England and southern Scotland. The name is of Old Norse origin, and means “settlement by the cross”; as we learned from Cruz, these stone crosses were often used as markers. Famous Crosbys include entertainer Bing Crosby and musician David Crosby. The name has recently begun charting in the US, after drama series Parenthood was shown on television there. The show has a character called Crosby Braverman, played by Dax Shephard, and the name must have resonated, because it went up 69 places last year. Crosby is rare in Australia (I’ve only seen it on a child once), but maybe Parenthood will have an effect here too.

Ebenezer

Ebenezer is a suburb of Ipswich. It had been a preaching place on the Methodist Church circuit since 1863, and by 1882 a church had been built named the Wesleyan Ebenezer Church. It is from this church that the suburb gets its name. In the Old Testament, Eben-Ezer is a place mentioned as the scene of battles between the Israelites and the Philistines; its modern day location is not known, but it is probably in Palestine or Arabic Israel. Eben-Ezer is from the Hebrew for “stone of help”, and it is theorised that a stone dedicated to Yahweh may have been located here to give it its name. Its most famous namesake must be Ebenezer Scrooge from Charles Dicken’s A Christmas Carol, the cold-hearted miser redeemed by three spirits of Christmas. I think the name Ebenezer sounds pretty hip now, and an Old Testament boys name which has been overlooked for too long. Eben and Ben would make good nicknames.

Hamilton

Hamilton is a hilly inner-city suburb of Brisbane on the Brisbane River which was built by convict labour. It soon became known for its upper-class country houses and estates, ornamental shade trees, picturesque location and fine views of the city. Hamilton is associated with “old money”, and has the highest mean income of any suburb in Queensland. It is named after the Hamilton Hotel, built in 1865 by Gustav Hamilton, a wealthy solicitor who owned most of the land in the area. It soon became known as a meeting place for the horse racing world, as the Turf Club is nearby, and is still popular today. Hamilton is an English and Scottish surname after the village of Hamilton in Leicestershire; its name means “crooked hill” in Old English. The aristocratic Hamilton family gained lands in Lanarkshire, Scotland, and gave their name to the town of Hamilton there. The Hamiltons married into the Scottish royal family, and the Duke of Hamilton and Brandon is the highest peer in Scotland. A famous person with the name is Hamilton Hume, an early Australian explorer of New South Wales who was a top-notch bushman and formed friendly relationship with Aboriginal peoples. This is a name with an impressive pedigree.

Logan

The city of Logan is halfway between Brisbane and the Gold Coast. It began as a penal settlement, and farming soon followed; it was developed for housing in the 1960s due to its laissez-faire planning laws. Logan is named after Captain Patrick Logan, the Scottish commandant of the original penal settlement, who had a reputation for being strict to the point of cruelty. He was a great explorer and was killed on one of his expeditions, most likely by Aborigines who had repeatedly told him to get off their land. News of his death was met with wild joy from the convicts. Logan is a Scottish surname; the Clan Logan comes from the “lands of Logan” in Ayrshire, which may be from the Gaelic for “hollow”, or even of Norman origin. In Ireland, it is considered to come from the Gaelic O’Leoghain, meaning “grandson of the warrior”. This name has many namesakes from popular culture, including the dystopian sci-fi film Logan’s Run, where Logan is played by Michael Yorke, and Logan aka Wolverine from the X-Men films, played by Hugh Jackman. Logan has charted since the 1970s (when Logan’s Run first screened), and ranked in the 1980s at #344. It climbed steeply through the 1990s and made the Top 100 by the 2000s. It is currently #38 nationally, #36 in New South Wales, #33 in Victoria, #65 in Queensland, #46 in South Australia, #28 in Western Australia, #17 in Tasmania, and #50 in the Australian Capital Territory.

Sherwood

Sherwood is a suburb on Oxley Creek. Its name comes from a farm which was named after Sherwood Forest in Nottinghamshire, England. A Royal Forest, and remnant of an older and much larger royal hunting forest, it is one of England’s most ancient, having survived since the end of the last Ice Age. It is famous for its association with legendary folk hero Robin Hood, who is supposed to have lived in Sherwood, according to some sources. Sherwood in Brisbane even made its own Sherwood Forest Park, which is now, less romantically, the Sherwood Arboretum. The name Sherwood means “shire wood”. A famous person with the name is American author Sherwood Anderson.

Tennyson

Tennyson is a riverside suburb named in honour of Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Tennyson was Poet Laureate of Great Britain and Ireland during Queen Victoria’s reign, and has the record for length of tenure as a Laureate at 42 years. Revered in his own time, he remains one of the popular English poets. One of his much-loved works is the Idylls of the King, a cycle of blank verse poems inspired by the legends of King Arthur; many of the streets in Tennyson have Arthurian names in compliment of the Idylls. For those amused by these coincidences, the Queensland Tennis Centre is located in Tennyson, and was once the Tennyson Tennis Centre. The English surname Tennyson means “son of Tenney”, with Tenney a pet form of the name Denis. Actor Russell Crowe has a son named Tennyson, after his favourite poet. This is a handsome and unusual name, with a great namesake, and would make an excellent middle name too.

Windsor

Windsor is an inner-city suburb of Brisbane, with many old homes, and containing several heritage-listed sites. It was named Windsor in 1887, most likely after Windsor Castle in Berkshire, England, as it was Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee Year. Windsor Castle was built by William the Conqueror, and was originally a fortification to protect the outskirts of London, with strategic views of the River Thames and access to the royal hunting forest of Windsor. Since the rule of Henry I, William’s son, it has been a royal residence, and is the largest inhabited castle and longest-occupied palace in Europe. Today it is a royal palace and weekend retreat for Elizabeth II, and state banquets and official entertainments are often held there – it is also a major tourist attraction. The castle is named after the nearby village of Windsor, once the site of a palace for the Saxon kings. Its name means “winding shores, winch shores” in Old English, because boats were pulled by windlass up the river. Famously, Windsor is the surname of the British royal family: the name was changed from Saxe-Coburg and Gotha by George V in 1917, due to anti-German sentiment during World War I. The final straw was when Germany used the Gotha G. IV aircraft to bomb London – just four months later, the Saxe-Coburg-Gothas had become the Windsors, the name taken from the royal palace. A famous person named Windsor is British actor Windsor Davies, best known as the sergeant on It Ain’t Half Hot Mum. Royal names are all the rage, and you can’t get any more royal than Windsor.

POLL RESULT: People’s favourite names were Tennyson, Augustine, and Windsor, and their least favourite were Sherwood, Hamilton, and Ebenezer.

(Photo shows the suburb of Hamilton)

Why Your Child Will Hate Their Name

22 Sunday Sep 2013

Posted by A.O. in Your Questions Answered

≈ 21 Comments

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baby name advice, baby name books, choosing baby names, classic names, created names, dated names, Google, honouring, name forums, name image, name popularity, name studies, names from television, popular names, pseudonyms

How can I pick a name my child won’t hate?

That’s the question somebody typed into a search bar, and Google knows how, ended up on my blog. Here’s the kicker: you can’t. There’s no name, no matter how tastefully chosen, that comes with a guarantee that your child won’t one day hate it to bits.

I know people with what I see as very nice names (nicer than mine, in my opinion) who hate them with a bewildering passion, while people who have what I consider very boring or even ugly names are deeply grateful to their parents for choosing them. We all have different tastes.

I do know quite a few people who hate their names, and if you hang out on name forums, you don’t have to look hard to find others who have become disgruntled with their names. While everyone has their own personal quirks, over the years I have noticed a few things they tended to have in common.

These are often not the things that baby name articles warn you about. For example, a popular belief is that a “weird name” is sure to be hated by the bearer, who will be teased in the playground and come to loathe their name, their parents, and probably the whole world.

I haven’t noticed this to be the case, with most owners of unusual names enjoying, or at least coming to terms with them. I have never met anyone with an unusual name who legally changed it to something more mundane, even those who professed to find it a bit of a pain sometimes. At most, they adopted a pseudonym when booking restaurants.

Another piece of advice often handed out is that a “bizarre” name spelling will be such a nuisance that the bearer will undoubtedly wish that their parents had gone with something more traditional. Again, I don’t find that to be generally true. Some people with unusually spelled names loathe them, while others are delighted by them.

I know someone with a very unintuitive name spelling (think Veeruyniiikkarh for Veronica), and she loves that every letter in her name was individually chosen by her mum, with each one having a specific personal meaning. I thought it would be the most tremendous nuisance to have to spell out every time, but she assures me that she doesn’t mind at all. “It makes me feel special that my name gets so much attention”. For her, holding up queues is an ego-massage.

As I can’t tell you how to pick a name your child won’t hate, I thought I would least explain why they may end up hating it.

They hate themselves

Research has shown that people with high self-esteem tend to like their own name, and the higher their sense of self-worth, the more they liked their name. That suggests that people who dislike their own name may suffer from self-esteem issues.

You might assume that someone who dislikes their name would arrogantly think it not good enough for them, but sometimes it seems to be the other way around – they don’t think they are good enough for their names.

“It’s a popular girl name, it’s just not me”; “It’s too pretty for me carry it off”; or the most tragic I heard, “It sounds like the name of a happy normal person”.

To give your child the best chance of liking their name, make sure that they have high self-esteem. Convince them that they are pretty, popular, happy and normal enough for their name.

Their name is going downhill

A lot of parents worry about popularity; nearly always that the name is “too popular” to use, or is going to be too popular in the future.

However, I’ve noticed that the majority of people who dislike their names were given names that were either falling in popularity when they were born, or hitting their peak, so that they had begun falling by the time they started school.

Not only that, but the level of dislike appears to correlate with how steeply the name rose and fell. Names with a very obvious peak and trough, dating them to a particular era, seem to be the most disliked.

It doesn’t necessarily seem to be the most popular names that are disliked so much as those which display this pattern. For example, Sarah was the #1 name of the 1980s, yet I rarely hear Sarahs complain bitterly about their name. Could that be because Sarah is a classic which is still in the Top 40, so we don’t think of it as a “typical 1980s name”?

I don’t often hear anyone identify the trajectory of their name’s popularity as the reason for their dissatisfaction. They all have what appear to be good reasons for their dislike: it’s unattractive, it’s boring, it doesn’t suit them. Yet somehow it seems to be names falling in popularity which are perceived as ugly, boring, and not suiting their owners.

People given names that were already dated and out of style at the time of their birth (“old people” names) usually say that they hated their name as a child, but now they’re grown up, they appreciate it’s different from the usual names of their generation.

That may because such names sometimes begin to come back into fashion when they are adults. For example, someone born in the 1980s named Florence would have had a dated name, as it peaked in the 1900s. But now it is fashionable and rising in popularity – suddenly Florence has a cool name.

I do think popularity is worth considering – but not to cross off a name because it’s hit a particular point in the charts. Of course, you can’t know how a name will perform in the future, but you can at least see how it’s doing now. Has it maintained its position over several decades? Has it suddenly “come out of nowhere”? Is it already falling steeply? This information might help you choose between different names.

They hate the reason you chose their name

If someone really loves their name, I don’t think a bad name story will seriously ruin it for them, but if someone is already lukewarm, a bad one can add insult to injury. The factors that seem to get people’s goats are a perceived randomness, casualness, or lack of thought in the way their name was selected.

When you tell your child how you chose their name, stress how important it was to you and how much you love their name. If you chose their name from a baby name book, or a TV show, for example, make sure they understand that it wasn’t just by chance you chose their name. Whatever it was that made you fall in love with the name, express it. And don’t wait until they’re a moody teen or resentful adult to share the good news – they should know from an early age how special you think their name is.

I know a lot of people who disliked their names, and were even thinking of changing them, until their parents explained how much love and care had gone into choosing it. Teenagers who thought their parents had unimaginatively picked a popular name found that they had been named after a much-loved relative. A “made up” name that seemed “random” was the result of putting together the initials of their parents’ best friends who introduced them. And sometimes just knowing it was a name their parents loved above all others was enough to reconcile someone to a name they had thought ordinary.

The bottom line: everyone wants their name to be meaningful. Show your child that theirs is.

You hate your name

In some cases, disliking names seems to run in the family. Quite a number of women I know who dislike their names tell me that their mother was also unhappy with her own name. This may be from parental modelling. Just as mothers who constantly moan about their flabby thighs tend to have daughters with body image problems, it could be that mothers who dislike their name unconsciously send the message to their children to focus on anything about their name that fails to please.

If you hate your own name, make peace with it. Don’t try to work out your own issues when choosing your child’s name. So many parents seem to think that because they hated being one of a dozen in their class their child’s name must be rare, or because they hated their nickname their child needs a “nickname proof” name.

It’s well intentioned, but the trouble is that you’ve made your child’s name story all about you. When you tell your child how you chose their name, the story shouldn’t include information about how you felt about your name. Don’t use your child’s name as an opportunity to fix the mistakes of the past.

They hate you

In rare but distressing cases, people reject their names because their relationship with their parents irretrievably breaks down. It’s not uncommon for them to change their names in order to signal a complete break from their family background, and it can also be so their parents can’t easily locate them.

I don’t think this is worth worrying about, because if it occurs, their name isn’t really the issue, and is the least of your problems.

POSTSCRIPT: I should add that most of my observations in regard to name dislike relate to women. It isn’t that I don’t know any men who dislike their names – I know a fair few who hated their name enough to legally change it, and I’ve read a lot of articles written by men on how much they dislike their name.

However, women and girls do seem to more openly express their feelings about their names, and it’s possible that they have subtler emotions toward their name, or are more likely to be analytical about them. Perhaps women are more likely to be “fussy” about their names than men. Whatever the reason, it seems to be easier to gather information about their feelings towards their names (at least for me).

POLL RESULTS
79% of people responding to the poll were generally satisfied with their name. 33% liked their name, 19% loved their name, 18% weren’t mad about their name, but could live with it, and 9% said that they used to dislike their name, but had changed their mind and now felt positive towards it.

However, 12% of people did hate their name, while 9% thought that hate was too strong a word to use, but they didn’t really like their names either.

The good news is, most of us have names that we are content with, and around 10% of people who don’t like their name will change their minds.

(Picture from Naver)

Famous Name: Jason

18 Wednesday Sep 2013

Posted by A.O. in Famous Names

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Beyond Jennifer & Jason, Biblical names, famous namesakes, fictional namesakes, Greek names, hebrew names, historical records, honouring, Linda Rosenkrantz, mythological names, name history, name meaning, name popularity, name trends, names from movies, names from television, Pamela Redmond Satran, royal names, saints names, US name popularity

A federal election was held on September 7, and we have had a change of government. Votes are still being counted, so the election isn’t over, and we may have some names from it when the process is complete.

However, in a much more frivolous political poll held in August, Cleo magazine rated the male politicians on their sex appeal, and decided that Labor MP Jason Clare, described as the “Rob Lowe of Australian politics”, was the winner. I can’t help thinking if a men’s magazine had rated female politicians like this it would be considered very wrong.

Jason Clare represents the seat of Blaxland in western Sydney, which he won in 2007, and until recently was the Federal Home Affairs Minister. Jason grew up in the western suburbs, made dux of his class, and completed a law degree while pursuing an interest in politics. While Labor lost the election with a significant swing against it, Jason managed to increase his hold over the electorate by 6%.

To show that he is not vain about his appearance, Jason modestly joked that his wife’s preference in the Cleo poll was for the runner-up, Stephen Smith. Hello ladies – he’s a smart, handsome law graduate and his wife doesn’t appreciate him! (is the message I think we’re meant to be receiving there).

Jason is from the Greek name Iason, derived from the Greek for “to heal”. Iaso was the Greek goddess of recuperation from illness, so you could see Jason as a masculine form of her name. Although Jason is often translated as “healer” or even “physician”, to me the meaning of the name is more about the body’s natural ability to heal itself.

The name is best known from the mythological prince of Thessaly, who led a hand-picked crew of heroes on the good ship Argo, in quest of the Golden Fleece, with the aid of the goddess Hera. Jason and the Argonauts had a series of adventures, in which they didn’t behave very nobly for much of the time, then arrived in Colchis, which today is in Georgia, on the Black Sea.

The Golden Fleece was owned by King Aeetes, and to obtain it, the king gave Jason three tasks which seemed impossible to perform. Hera arranged for Aeetes’ daughter Medea to fall in love with Jason, and as she was a great sorceress, she was able to use her knowledge of magic to help him succeed, after he promised her that they would get married.

Jason and Medea then fled with the Fleece and sailed away on the Argo, because King Aeetes knew that Jason could only have completed the tasks by cheating, and wanted his property back. He pursued them until Medea came up with the horrible plan to kill her own brother and throw him into the sea, piece by piece, to distract her father.

Medea’s interest in dismembering family members continued when she and Jason returned to Greece, and she arranged for his Uncle Pelias to get chopped up into soup. Pelias had tried to drown Jason as a baby, then sent him off on the dangerous Golden Fleece quest hoping he’d die, so she had her reasons. With her penchant for murdering relatives, you’d think that Jason would have been blissfully happy with Medea, but instead he betrayed her love by becoming engaged to another woman.

When Medea tried to point out that all Jason’s luck in life was because of her, and he was being very ungrateful, he replied, “Babe, you’re the one who got lucky when the gods made you fall in love with me”. Medea wasn’t the type to take this treatment lying down, and she promptly burned her rival to death before murdering the children she and Jason had had together. Although Jason was ungallant, Medea’s tendency to see her own flesh and blood as collateral damage is disturbing.

Because Jason had broken his vow to love Medea forever, the goddess Hera abandoned him, and he wound up lonely and miserable. He was killed when the Argo, now old and rotting, broke and fell on top of him while he was asleep – a suitably ironic finish.

A king of Thessaly named Jason was a contemporary of Alexander the Great‘s father. A successful and ambitious general, it is thought that he must have been at least one of the inspirations of the great Alexander himself. It seems very likely he was named after the Thessalian hero.

There is a Jason in the New Testament, one of the Seventy Disciples of Christ, who ran a “safe house” for Christians in Thessalonica, and was once arrested for it. Saint Paul appointed him bishop of Tarsus, and he is known as Saint Jason. Unusually for an early Christian saint, Jason lived to a ripe old age. The Jewish historian Josephus tells us that Hellenised Jews used the name Jason to replace Yeshua (Joshua or Jesus), and this may apply to Saint Jason too.

Being Biblical, Jason was acceptable for use as a Christian name, and can be found in the records from at least the 16^th century. The name Jason became very popular in the 1970s, and it looks as if this was due to the original Jason, because the movie Jason and the Argonauts came out in 1963 (it cut out most of the revolting parts). A special effects tour de force, it’s a cult classic, and according to Tom Hanks, the greatest film ever made. It must have made a huge impression.

Jason was already rising in popularity at the time of the film’s release, but soon zoomed up the charts to make the US Top 100 three years later. It was Top 10 in the US for all of the 1970s, which coincides with popular TV series, The Waltons, having a Jason. Even in the late 1980s, when Jason was #27, Pamela Redmond Satran and Linda Rosenkrantz were urging parents to “go beyond Jennifer and Jason”. Despite their book’s success, Jason has still not left the Top 100 in the United States, so American parents only partially heeded their call.

Jason has charted in Australia since the 1950s, when it was #290 for the decade. By the 1960s it had climbed phenomenally to make the Top 50, at #43 for the decade. It peaked in the 1970s (when Jason Clare was born) at #3, was still #18 in the 1980s, and #35 in the 1990s. Did nobody feel like going beyond Jason? It finally left the Top 100 in the mid-2000s, and is currently #133 and stable – not popular any more, but by no means plummeting into obscurity.

Jason has been a real 1960s success story, and continues to influence popular names for boys, because parents are still attracted to similar names, such as Mason, Jacob, Jayden, Jackson, Jasper and Jordan. In fact, Jason is staging a comeback under the short form Jace – already Top 100 in the United States, and no doubt rising here too.

It turns out we’re not ready to go beyond Jason yet – at least, not very far.

POLL RESULT: Jason received an approval rating of 38%. People saw the name Jason as a “dad name” (30%), and common and boring (20%). However, 12% saw it as a “nice guy” name, and 10% thought it attractive. Nobody thought the name Jason was sexy.

Rare Royal Names for Girls

01 Sunday Sep 2013

Posted by A.O. in Name Themes and Lists

≈ 11 Comments

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Anglo-Saxon names, Christmas names, Danish names, english names, famous namesakes, fictional namesakes, French names, germanic names, Greek names, honouring, Latin names, locational names, middle names, mythological names, name history, name meaning, names from television, nicknames, Old English names, Old Norse names, rare names, Roman names, royal names, saints names, scandinavian names, Star Trek

Royal babies have been on everyone’s mind lately, and we recently saw two babies born in the royal family within less than a month of each other.

Not only have been people been doing web searches for Prince George and Maud Windsor, they’ve been searching for royal baby names in general, uncommon royal names, and royal names that nobody else is using.

So here is a list of queens and princesses connected to English royal houses by either birth or marriage, whose names aren’t popular or common in Australia (although I can’t promise nobody else will use them).

Adeliza

Adeliza of Louvain married Henry I, and became queen of England. She was considered pretty, but didn’t manage to produce any royal heirs. However, after Henry’s death she re-married, and had seven children; she is an ancestor of many of the noble English families. William the Conqueror had a daughter called Adeliza, named after his sister – the name wasn’t uncommon amongst Norman-French aristocracy. Adeliza is a medieval English form of Adelais, a short form of Adelheidis, the original old Germanic form of Adelaide. It’s pronounced ad-uh-LEE-za. Although it doesn’t have any connection to the name Elizabeth, it looks like a combination of Adele and Eliza, and might feel like a way to honour relatives who have variants of these names. It’s rare, but doesn’t seem unfamiliar.

Berengaria

Berengaria of Navarre was Queen of England through her marriage to Richard I, “the Lionheart”. She is the only English queen never to set foot in the country, since she only visited England after her husband’s death, when she was no longer queen. Richard himself spent only a few months in England during his marriage, as he was busy Crusading. Richard and Berengaria never had any children, and it is not known if their marriage was ever consummated, as they spent so much time apart. Richard’s family seem to have liked her, and there are a few other royal English Berengarias, perhaps named after her. Berengaria was a traditional name amongst Spanish royalty, and is the feminine form of Berengar, an ancient Germanic name meaning “bear spear”. It is pronounced behr-en-GAR-ee-uh, and the name has been bestowed upon a planet in the Star Trek universe inhabited by dragon-like creatures. This doesn’t sound like any currently popular names, and the nickname Berry is appealing.

Christabel

Christabel was the middle name of Princess Alice, wife of Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester, a son of George V. Princess Alice was born into the aristocracy on both sides of her family, and was a direct descendant of Charles II, through an illegitimate line. She is related to Sarah, Duchess of York, the wife of Alice’s great-nephew, Prince Andrew. Just after the Second World War, Prince Henry was appointed Governor-General of Australia, and he and Princess Alice lived in Canberra for two years. The name Christabel is a combination of Christina with a -bel suffix, but Princess Alice was given this name because was born on December 25, and the name suggests Christmas bells. Her niece Princess Alexandra was also born on Christmas Day, and shares the middle name Christabel. Apart from the Christmas connection, this pretty name might seem like a good way to honour a Christine and an Isobel (for example) simultaneously.

Elfreda

Elfreda was one of the wives of Edgar I, and she was the first king’s wife to be crowned and anointed as Queen of England. Beautiful and powerful, she was unfortunately linked with the murder of her stepson Saint Edward the Martyr, and ever after appears in medieval history in the role of evil stepmother. Her own son, replacement to the martyred Edward, was Ethelred the Unready, only a child when he took the throne. Elfreda was a traditional name amongst Anglo-Saxon royalty, and Alfred the Great of Wessex had a daughter named Elfreda, an ancestor of Queen Matilda, the wife of William the Conqueror; through Matilda, the monarchs of England are descendants of the House of Wessex. There is a Saint Elfreda, an Anglo-Saxon princess. Elfreda is a modern spelling of the Anglo-Saxon name Ælfþryð, meaning “elf strength”. The name went out of use after the Norman Conquest, but was revived in the 19^th century, although it never became popular. Freda would make a good nickname – unfortunately, sweet Elfie would probably be misheard as Alfie, leading to confusion.

Eugenie

Eugenie was the second name of Victoria Eugenie, a grand-daughter of Queen Victoria who married Alfonso XIII and became Queen of Spain. Her grandson Juan Carlos I is the current king of Spain. Unfortunately, her marriage to Alfonso wasn’t particularly happy, and she didn’t enjoy great popularity with the Spanish people – she was greeted with an assassination attempt on her wedding day. After the Republicans gained power, Victoria Eugenie went into exile with the rest of the Spanish royal family. Queen Victoria Eugenie’s middle name was in honour of her godmother, Maria Eugenia “Eugénie” de Montijo, empress consort to Napoleon III. Eugénie was a member of the Spanish nobility, and after the defeat of the Second French Empire, she lived in England, where she became friendly with the British royal family. The name remains well-known because of Princess Eugenie of York, daughter of Prince Andrew, who was named after Victoria Eugenie. Eugenie is the Anglicisation of Eugénie, the French form of Eugenia, which is the feminine form of Greek Eugenius, meaning “well born, of noble birth”. This elegant name is said yoo-JEE-nee, and Gina or Genie could be used as nicknames.

Marina

Princess Marina of Greece and Denmark was a cousin of Prince Philip. Like her cousin, she married into the British royal family when she wed Prince George, the Duke of Kent, an uncle of Queen Elizabeth II; she was the last foreign-born princess to marry into the British royal family. Princess Marina was attractive and stylish, earning her a place in the International Best Dressed List Hall of Fame, and her favourite shade of blue-green became known as “Marina blue”. Princess Marina’s mother was the grand-daughter of Tsar Alexander II of Russia, and Marina may have been named after Princess Marina of Russia. Princess Marina and the Duke of Kent were married in 1934, and a year later, Swiss water-ski champ Marina Doria was born, which looks more than coincidental. Oddly enough, Marina Doria also became Princess Marina, when she married a prince of Naples. Marina’s name has been passed down to her grand-daughter, Maud Elizabeth Daphne Marina Windsor, and I have seen a birth announcement for a Scarlett Marina this week. Marina is the feminine form of the Roman name Marinus, which may be from the Latin for “of the sea”. There are two saints named Marina, and it’s also the name Saint Margaret is known by in the Orthodox church. Marina is a very beautiful name, and familiar in Australia due to entertainer Marina Prior.

Melita

Princess Victoria Melita was a grand-daughter of both Queen Victoria and Tsar Alexander II, making her Princess Marina’s great-aunt. Her love life was one of great turmoil, because she fell in love with her cousin Kirill, Grand Duke of Russia, but was forced to marry her cousin Ernest, Grand Duke of Hesse instead. The marriage wasn’t a success, as Victoria Melita preferred Kirill, and Ernest preferred young boys. Soon after Victoria and Ernest ‘s divorce, Kirill was almost killed during the Russo-Japanese War, and this brush with death made him realise that nothing was more important than being with his true love. He defied his family, and married Victoria Melita, much to his parents’ rage and disgust. Although their marriage and family life was happy, the Russian Revolution and subsequent exile was a setback, and the couple rather naively supported the Nazi Party. More emotional pain followed for Victoria when Kirill was unfaithful to her, which she never got over. Her life contained some bitterness, but Victoria Melita’s middle name has a sweet meaning. Melita is the Latin name for the island of Malta, thought to come from its Greek name, Melite, meaning “sweet as honey”; Malta was famous for its honey production. This doesn’t sound out of place next to popular names like Mila and Layla, and would be a great way to honour Maltese ancestry; you could use Millie or Lita as nicknames.

Sibylla

Princess Sibylla (born Sibylle) was a great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria who married her second-cousin Prince Gustaf Adolf (known as “Edmund”) of Sweden; her son Carl XVI Gustaf is the current king of Sweden. The couple don’t seem to have been very popular in Sweden, being plagued by rumours of Nazi sympathising, of which there is no proof. Unfortunately, Sibylla did have quite a few relatives in the Nazi Party in Germany, who threw her a big fat Nazi wedding, and this can’t have been a help at soothing suspicions. The name Sibylla (or Sybilla) has been used amongst European royalty and nobility since the Middle Ages, and has been connected with the British royal family from early on. William the Conqueror’s son Robert was married to a Sybilla, and Henry I had an illegitimate daughter named Sybilla, who married Alexander I of Scotland. Sibylla is from the Greek word for a female prophet of the ancient world who uttered divine revelations in a state of frenzy; the word became sibyl in English. During the Middle Ages, it was thought that the Greek and Romans sybils had been precursors to Christian prophecy, and therefore gained respectability as a Christian concept and name. This name (and its variants), though uncommon, is quite trendy in Australia, being known from actress Sibylla Budd, and the heroine of My Brilliant Career, Sybylla Melvyn, whose name inspired feminist publishing house, Sybylla Press.

Sigrid

The splendidly-named Sigrid the Haughty was supposedly the wife of Sweyn Forkbeard, who ruled England before the Conquest, in the days when the Danish royal house held the throne. It’s not clear if Sigrid was her real name, because it seems that Sweyn’s wife was actually Polish rather than Scandinavian, and in fact we can’t be sure if “Sigrid the Haughty” even existed. She may well be a fictional character, but her story is compelling. Beautiful and proud, Sigrid was a woman of great political power, who tended to wreak terrible revenge on those who annoyed her, and is supposed to have burned two of her suitors to death to discourage others. It could be that this fascinating lady of legend was tacked on to a real Polish woman who married Sweyn, and became the mother of King Canute the Great. Sigrid is from the Old Norse name Sigríðr, meaning “beautiful victory”. This is another name familiar in Australia because of an actress – the very famous Sigrid Thornton. The usual nicknames are Siri and Sigi.

Thyra

Thyra was the daughter of Sigrid and Sweyn Forkbeard, the sister of Canute the Great. She was married to Godwin, the first Earl of Essex, the father of King Harold who fell at the Battle of Hastings. She didn’t live very long, and she and Godwin didn’t have any children together, so she’s rather a footnote in the history books. She may have been named after Thyra, the wife of King Gorm the Old of Denmark; they were the parents of Harald Bluetooth, the father of Sweyn Forkbeard. According to at least one source, Queen Thyra was English, the daughter of King Ethelred of Wessex. She was said to be a smart and sensible woman who led an army against the Germans, and was described as the “pride of Denmark”. According to legend, one of Thyra’s daughters was captured by trolls and carried off to their kingdom in the far north. Thyra is from the Old Norse name Þýri, derived from the name of the god Thor, and possibly meaning “Thor’s war”. The name is pronounced TEE-rah, and I think it’s attractive and contemporary-sounding, although pronunciation may be an issue, with people trying to say it THY-rah.

POLL RESULT: People’s favourite names were Marina, Adeliza, and Christabel, and their least favourite were Elfreda, Thyra, and Berengaria.

(Picture is a drawing of Queen Berengaria)

Famous Names: Aria and Delta

14 Wednesday Aug 2013

Posted by A.O. in Famous Names

≈ 8 Comments

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alphanumeric names, celebrity baby names, english names, famous namesakes, fictional namesakes, geographical names, Greek names, historical records, Italian names, locational names, musical names, musical terms, name popularity, name trends, names from songs, names from television, nature names, nicknames, saints names, vocabulary names

The Australian music industry celebrated an important birthday a month ago, because July 10 this year marked thirty years since the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) began collating sales information from music stores. The ARIA charts developed from the Kent Music Report, and the first Australian charts began in the 1960s, collated by Go-Set magazine, the music “bible” of its time which later spawned Australian Rolling Stone, and whose weekly music columnist Ian “Molly” Meldrum would go on to host seminal music show Countdown.

The first single to top the ARIA charts way back in 1983 was Total Eclipse of the Heart by Bonnie Tyler, the first #1 album was Michael Jackson’s Thriller, and the most consistently popular performer over the many years of her career has been Madonna. However, Kylie Minogue equalled Madonna for the most #1 singles (10), and was equal second with the Black Eyed Peas for most weeks (30) spent at #1 in the singles charts.

Pop singer Delta Goodrem’s debut album, Innocent Eyes, spent longer at #1 than any other Australian album at 29 weeks, and she is the first ever music artist to have five #1 singles from a debut album. Innocent Eyes went on to be the best-selling album of the 2000s. Delta played aspiring singer Nina Tucker on soapie Neighbours, where she sang Born to Try, scoring Delta her first #1 spot on the ARIA charts. She has won ten ARIA Awards, and all her albums have gone to #1, making her one of Australia’s best-selling female artists. Delta is currently a judge, coach and mentor on The Voice.

In music, an aria is a vocal piece performed by a singer, usually as part of a larger work. We often connect arias to opera, although they can be part of classical concert music too, and usually think of them as very beautiful and elaborate pieces of music that only an expert singer can do justice to.

Some famous arias are Ave Maria, O Sole Mio, La Donne e Mobile from Rigoletto, and Nessun Dorma from Turandot (if you think you don’t know them, click on the links to listen, and you’ll probably find that you have heard them before). In Italian, aria means “air”, and is from the Latin word for “atmosphere”.

As a girl’s name, Aria is usually said to be a modern English name. It’s hard to track it through historical records, as any Arias you find could easily be a misprint for Maria, so while there are hundreds of Arias in Australian records, with both English and Italian surnames, your guess is as good as mine whether they were really named Aria.

There is a Saint Aria, an obscure early Christian who was martyred in Rome, but her name seems to have been short for Ariadne.

Aria catapulted into the national Top 100 last year, debuting at #83, the second-highest rising name for girls in Australia, and possibly the highest, if we had access to all the data. The name has been popularised by the character of Aria Montgomery, from the Pretty Little Liars books and TV series, and young singer and actress Aria Wallace; it’s also been boosted by its similarity to other fashionable names, like Arya, Arianna, Ariel, Allira and Allegra. Musician Ash Grunwald welcomed a daughter named Aria earlier this year.

Delta is the fourth letter of the Greek alphabet; it’s based on a letter in several Semitic alphabets which is supposed to represent a door. The Greek letter is shaped like a triangle when capitalised, and it is for this reason that the landmass at the mouth of river became known as a “delta”. If you want to get geographically technical, it is wave-dominated deltas which tend to have this triangular form; the most obvious example is that of the River Nile, and it is the Nile Delta which was first given the name, and is the “original” delta.

The Mississippi Delta region is the area which lies between the Mississippi and Yazoo Rivers, and includes parts of the states of Tennessee, Mississippi and Arkansas. Here’s another geographical technicality – the Mississippi Delta isn’t actually a delta – it’s an alluvial plain. The Mississippi River Delta is 300 miles to the south, in Louisiana, where the river meets the Gulf of Mexico. Just in case you have, in this short space of time, due to my scintillating prose style, become obsessed with river deltas, the Mississippi River has a bird-foot delta, where long finger-like projections reach out into the sea, and isn’t actually delta-shaped in the least.

The Mississippi Delta (the region, not the actual river delta in Louisiana – gosh I hope all this geography isn’t getting too confusing) is associated with the very beginning of several genres of popular music, such as Delta blues and rock and roll. You can no doubt get yourself into some very stimulating arguments over whether Delta blues is significantly different to any other kind of blues, or just how rock and roll got started anyway, but the Mississippi Delta would be crazy not to cash in with tons of music festivals, and they’re not, so they do.

Rita Coolidge is an American singer who inspired the song Delta Lady, by her one-time boyfriend, singer-songwriter Leon Russell. I always assumed that the name came about because Ms Coolidge is from the Mississippi Delta, but – more geographical technicalities – she’s from Macon county in Tennessee, which isn’t in the Delta region. So we may be talking poetic license here rather than geographical technicalities, although from the song’s lyrics, Russell seems to be using delta as a metaphor for ladyparts (as in the erotica collection, Delta of Venus, by Anais Nin).

(Just as an aside, the faded southern belle of unsound mind in the song Delta Dawn, which became Helen Reddy’s first #1 hit, was from Brownsville in Tennessee, which prides itself on being the “heart of the Tennessee Delta”. Dawn was a real Delta Lady.)

It was the song Delta Lady which inspired Delta Goodrem’s parents to name their daughter Delta, so that is one possible source of the name, but you could see it as a geographic name, a nature name or an alphanumeric name as well. You can also see it as a musical name, because a major 7^th chord is sometimes called a Delta Chord.

There are many, many women named Delta in Australian historical records, dating back to the 19^th century, and it is currently #412 in Victoria.

So here’s two pretty, modern-sounding musical names for girls, both with an Australian focus. Cross-cultural Aria is much more on trend that Delta, and consequently more popular, yet Delta has a more solid history of use as a personal name. Which one do you like better?

POLL RESULTS: Aria received an approval rating of 78%, and Delta of 33%.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOz6Mt2t084

Is August a Boy’s Name, or the Name of a Month?

10 Saturday Aug 2013

Posted by A.O. in Naming Assistance

≈ 8 Comments

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celebrity baby names, choosing baby names, famous namesakes, fictional name, honouring, middle names, name combinations, names from movies, names from television, nicknames, scandinavian names, sibsets, types of boats

Olivia and Dale are from New Zealand, and they are expecting their third child towards the end of the year. Their son is named Innes, and their daughter is Abigail, and they have a fairly common surname beginning with C and ending with N eg Charlton.

Olivia likes male names which are generally softer in sound, such as Henry, Abel, Arlo, Eli, Miller and Soren, but Dale has vetoed all these ideas.

Dale, who is of Swedish heritage, would prefer a Scandinavian-style name, and only likes three names for a boy: Lachlan, Stellan, and August. Although Olivia likes Lachlan, she feels that it is too popular for their common surname, and Stellan is the cat’s name.

By elimination, that leaves August as their front-runner, but they have had mixed reactions when they have asked for people’s opinions. Some love it, while to others, August is a month, not a boy’s name. The Charltons live in an area where boys tend to have unspectacular names, and Olivia wonders whether August is too far out.

The middle names they are thinking of using are Leander and James. Leander has special significance for them, because Olivia and Dale were both in the navy, and met on a Leander class frigate. Olivia suggested Leander as the first name, but Dale vetoed it. James is a family name, but it was mostly chosen because it flows well with Leander.

Olivia wants to know whether August Leander James C_____n works as a name, and if there are any other soft-sounding Scandinavian-style boy’s names they might like.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

You’ve already discovered that some people love the name August, and I guess you can add one more, because I adore August. I think it’s handsome and stylish, and it seems perfect for you. It honours Dale’s Swedish heritage, it’s a softer boy’s name, and you get fashionable nicknames from it like Gus and Augie. It sounds fantastic with the middle names you’ve chosen, and I would count August Leander James as one of the nicest boy’s names I’ve heard recently.

It may not sound like the boy’s names in your area, but our childrens’ names don’t have to fit in with the neighbours. It would be foolish to make them so when you could relocate later, new people could move to your area, and your son is unlikely to live in the same place for his entire life – and even if he did, the demographics of the area would change over time.

I suspect this isn’t really a huge concern for you, since Innes isn’t exactly a run of the mill name either, and I’m sure everyone around you has coped with it. I think Innes and August are really well-suited as brothers, by the way.

You’ve had some mixed reactions to the name August, but it doesn’t sound as if the mixture is people who love it and people who hate it – it seems more as if people either love it, or it confuses them. They hear August, and think, But August is a month … I know you can call girls April or May, but can you call boys after a month? And why is his name going to be August when he’s due late in the year?

If people seem a bit taken aback or confused when you tell them your son is named August, I would just briefly explain that it is the Scandinavian form of Augustus, and that Dale has Swedish heritage. And if they still seem a bit hesitant, maybe you could mention a famous August, so they have something concrete to attach to the name.

I would pick whatever August you think people you know would most readily connect to. So – August, like the Swedish playwright August Strindberg, or August, like Nicolas Cage’s dad, or August, like in that film “August Rush”, or August, like August Booth from “Once Upon a Time”. Or you could mention some celebrities who have sons named August, like Mariska Hargitay and Jeanne Tripplehorn.

I think that explanation would satisfy 95% of people, and the other 5% either need more time to get used to it, or they are just stuck on August being a month, and can’t, or won’t, get past it.

Other Softish-Sounding Boys Names

Ari
Bo
Elias
Hugo
Lars
Magnus
Matthias
Oscar
Theo
Tobias

These names either have a Scandinavian origin, or are currently popular in Sweden (like August), or have a history of use there. However, I honestly prefer August to any of these names.

Olivia and Dale, you’ve plenty of time to change your minds if you come up with a name you like better, but I’m kind of hoping you don’t, because I think August is a brilliant choice. Please let us know what you decided on once your little boy arrives!

NAME UPDATE: The baby’s name is August Leander James!

POLL RESULTS: Most people (69%) said they wouldn’t assume the name August was after the month, with 22% assuming August was derived from the name Augustus, and 47% refusing to make any assumptions at all. 16% of people said they would assume August was after the month, but nearly all of them thought that would be cool. Only one person (less than 1%) thought August was an odd name because of the month.

The name August Leander James received an overwhelmingly positive response, with 81% of people giving it a thumbs up. 55% thought it was a fantastic choice, while 26% said it was nicely put together. Not one person thought there was something seriously wrong with it.

Celebrity Baby News: Liam Picken and Annie Nolan

06 Tuesday Aug 2013

Posted by A.O. in Celebrity Baby News

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

celebrity baby names, celebrity sibsets, famous namesakes, Greek names, locational names, names from television, nicknames, twin sets

AFL footballer Liam Picken, and his partner Annie Nolan, welcomed twin girls in the autumn and have named their daughters Delphi and Cheska. The twins have only recently left hospital, as they were born premature. Delphi and Cheska are baby sisters to Malachy, aged 2 – Malachy’s birth was announced on the blog.

Liam has been playing Australian rules football professionally since 2009, and has always been with the Western Bulldogs. He is the son of Billy Picken, who played for Sydney and Collingwood in the 1970s and ’80s, and the cousin of Jonathan Brown, who is captain of the Brisbane Lions. Liam recently played his 100^th game for the Western Bulldogs, and walked out through the banner with Malachy.

Delphi is a Greek place name, the ancient site of the Delphic Oracle to Apollo; its name means “womb”, and it may have begun as a worship site to the Earth Goddess. Later it was connected to “dolphin”.

Cheska is short for Francesca. It is perhaps best known from blogger and PR rep Cheska Hull, who starred on reality TV series, Made in Chelsea.

(Photo shows Liam and Annie with Malachy)

	waltzingmorethanmati… on Zarah Zaynab and Wolfgang…
	Madelyn on Zarah Zaynab and Wolfgang…
	drperegrine on Can Phoebe Complete This …
	waltzingmorethanmati… on Rua and Rhoa
	redrover23 on Rua and Rhoa

Waltzing More Than Matilda

~ Names with an Australian Bias of Democratic Temper

Tag Archives: names from television

Name News Round Up

Names of Fictional Characters for Boys

Names of Fictional Characters for Girls

Brisbane Suburbs That Could Be Used as Boys Names

Why Your Child Will Hate Their Name

Famous Name: Jason

Rare Royal Names for Girls

Famous Names: Aria and Delta

Is August a Boy’s Name, or the Name of a Month?

Celebrity Baby News: Liam Picken and Annie Nolan